Written by The Windsor Star’s Craig Pearson and edited and published by Dan Wells of Biblioasis, From The Vault: A Photo History of Windsor to 1950 draws from The Star’s vast archive of photographs and illustrations dating back more than a century.

The book will be officially launched Thursday, Nov. 27, at The Windsor Star News Cafe.

It is destined to become one of Windsor’s most important historical documents, as it traces our history from eye-level, or at least through the lenses of The Star’s photographers. This is Windsor up-close and personal, focusing on the famous and infamous, certainly, but also on the everyday goings-on in a city that grew from a remote fur-trading post on the Detroit River to Canada’s automotive capital.

Dan Wells

The book is actually the first of a two-volume set, with Volume 2 covering the years from 1951 to the present. It is tentatively scheduled for publication in 2016.

The original idea was that of Biblioasis publisher Dan Wells, who had long wanted to publish a pictorial history.

“I’ve been thinking about doing this for years, actually,” said Wells. “Every time I’d look for something online, I’d go to The Star’s From the Vault feature in its online edition.”

He realized he could cut to the chase by simply gaining access to The Star’s photo archive.

“A light bulb went off in my head and I thought why try to reinvent the wheel when The Star is sitting on the most impressive archive of local photos in the area.”

At first when he approached The Star’s editor-in-chief Marty Beneteau and then-editorial page editor John Coleman with the idea in early 2013, the pitch was to do a book on a much smaller scale.

“I had in mind something in the range of 250 pages and 400 or 500 pictures,” Wells said.

Beneteau, for his part, wasn’t so sure. “I don’t think a whole lot of it because I think Dan had a better idea of what was in the archives than I did.”

After seeing an early version of the finished product, however, Beneteau was convinced, and later agreed to write a Forward for the book.

“It took my breath away to see the richness, the depth of this photography that has been sitting under our very noses.”

While the vast majority of photos come from the newspaper’s archives, Wells had to use some outside sources, including Windsor Public Library, Windsor’s Community Museum and Chrysler of Canada archives.

Reporter Craig Pearson was enlisted to compose the 31 introductory chapters, which took him the better part of 18 months to complete.

“I discovered how much Windsor set history for the rest of Ontario and Canada because of its place on the border,” Pearson said. “I think it will amaze people how much Detroit was part of Windsor growing up and how much we were part of Detroit.”

While older generations will be familiar with many of the people and events described in From the Vault, much of it will come as a surprise, even a shock, to younger readers.

“Especially today,” Pearson said, “these photos will be new to most people. The whole process let me learn a lot about the city and I hope it will help others learn about it, too.”

This photo from 1867 showing golfers in their attire is included in the book.

Wells said the book was designed from its earliest stages to be a highly accessible reference guide to Windsor’s past, something he hopes will find its way into every home.

That’s one of the reasons he has kept the price of the hardcover book at $39.95.

“A book like this could easily cost between $50 and $60,” he said. “But I wanted to keep the cost down to try and make sure it was a book everyone could get.”

Wells plans to have a so-called “soft launch” of From the Vault at his Wyandotte Street East store, Nov. 21-23, during the annual Walkerville Art Walk.

]]>http://blogs.windsorstar.com/entertainment/every-picture-tells-windsors-story-and-there-are-thousands-of-them/feed0At 455 pages and more than 1,000 photographs, From the Vault is the most comprehensive pictorial history of Windsor ever.winstarshawDan WellsThis photo from 1867 showing golfers in their attire is included in the book.The Star's editor-in-chief Marty Beneteau, left, and reporter Craig Pearson look through the photo archive at The Windsor Star. (TYLER BROWNBRIDGE / The Windsor Star)What this election has taught us about ourselveshttp://blogs.windsorstar.com/opinion/what-this-election-has-taught-us-about-ourselves
http://blogs.windsorstar.com/opinion/what-this-election-has-taught-us-about-ourselves#commentsFri, 24 Oct 2014 00:04:57 +0000http://blogs.windsorstar.com/?p=395968]]>The phone rings and it’s Ernie Lamont.

Except it’s not really Ernie Lamont, because Lamont has legally changed his name to Ernie the Baconman — an astute career move on the off chance his mayoral courtship goes unrequited and all that’s left is selling wieners from a wagon.

Baconman wants to shout from the rooftops about his jobs plan, including, but not limited to, a municipal takeover of funeral homes and a new casino featuring a 747 on the rooftop.

The last time voters went to the polls, four years ago, Baconman’s conversation with the newsroom would have been brief and, from his perspective, ultimately unsatisfying. He is the definition of a fringe candidate, that is, not taken seriously by most, and precious column inches in the newspaper typically don’t go to the fringe.

But that was then, and this is now, and thanks to the wonders of digital technology, there’s room for all at our table. Even a guy promising a cremation in every pot.

If this election has taught us anything, it is that it’s sometimes better to listen than to talk. Our unique setup at 300 Ouellette Ave. means (almost) never having to say “no” — not even to longshot vote seekers. Take a venue (our News Cafe) and mix in a platform (windsorstar.com) and a catchy name (Trail Talk), and voila: accessibility to the political process for all. One hundred Trail Talk interviews and more than 50 candidate statements posted to our website serve as testament to the new powers of the press.

Before television brought election night into the living room, the nearest most candidates could get to our newsroom was the street corner at Pitt and Ferry. A favourite archival photo from the 1930s shows voters and candidates in the hundreds milling outside the former Star building awaiting election night results.

Editors of the day would have been mortified at the thought of that horde not only slipping past the security guard, but enjoying near carte blanche access to our journalistic resources.

In this June 1934 photo, people gather out in front of the Windsor Star to get the latest information regarding the Election of 1934. (The Windsor Star-FILE)

This election marks the first time our newsroom looked itself in the mirror and said, “Same old story? No thanks.” We asked ourselves, can we do better? Done right, and harnessing all the tools available to us, could we help build a better, more educated, more engaged voter? Could our efforts serve as the wind beneath democracy’s wing?

Journalists Don McArthur and Dylan Kristy embraced that lofty ambition when they conceived Trail Talk as not your grandmother’s political talk show. It’s afforded refreshing young voices — candidates possessing great ideas if not the money for lawn signs — a loud, profound and uncensored coming out. Great ideas have been debated; endorsements offered; news stories broken; opinion-making explained. Even the Baconman’s interview contained a poignant exchange over his battle with depression. It humanized the man.

And it’s made for strange bedfellows. Some of the candidates who appeared on the show are among our harshest social media critics. Go figure.

The dialogue we helped spawn led us to do something we almost never do — reverse our editorial position opposing a municipal auditor general. Setting aside campaign rhetoric, how, in an era when our business believes in greater access to information, could we continue to defend less of it?

We challenged ourselves to push the envelope: Can we serve as the voter’s advocate, conducting rigorous fact-checking on claims made on the campaign trail? Can we host a debate? Can we subject mayoral candidates seeking our endorsement to the withering and, yes, sometimes over-the-top examination of an editorial board?

In the face of mounting disagreement within our ranks over whether a newspaper should keep its corporate nose out of the political arena, can we say, hey, we’ve done a bit of homework here and think endorsing a mayoral candidate adds something to the discussion?

Do 150 videos, coverage of virtually every all-candidates meeting and countless press conferences, opinion columns, editorials, fact checkers, a mayoral debate and the sting of Graston’s pen give us licence? We think so, and today’s endorsement editorial represents the view not of our columnists or reporters, but of the corporate Windsor Star.

You may disagree.

Like everything else in this campaign, your verdict is the only one that counts. That’s what listening more than talking has taught us.

Marty Beneteau is editor-in-chief of The Windsor Star.

Below is the video of Ernie the Baconman:

Below is the Mayors’ debate, which was filmed before a live audience and streamed live to windsorstar.com:

]]>http://blogs.windsorstar.com/opinion/what-this-election-has-taught-us-about-ourselves/feed0Donald McArthur, Ernie The Baconman and Dylan Kristy in The Windsor Star News Cafe on Oct. 9, 2014.winstarmartybIn this June 1934 photo, people gather out in front of the Windsor Star to get the latest information regarding the Election of 1934. (The Windsor Star-FILE) Business students tour The Windsor Starhttp://blogs.windsorstar.com/business/business-students-tour-windsor-star
http://blogs.windsorstar.com/business/business-students-tour-windsor-star#commentsFri, 11 Jul 2014 01:08:46 +0000http://blogs.windsorstar.com/?p=363489]]>University of Windsor MBA students from the Odette Business School, had a tour of the newspaper and listened to Editor-in-Chief Marty Beneteau at News Cafe on Ouellete on Thursday July 10, 2014.

'If we can't be relevant, we're going to be inconsequential,' says @martybeneteau of his small but talented and feisty newsroom

]]>http://blogs.windsorstar.com/business/business-students-tour-windsor-star/feed0Windsor Star Editor-in-Chief Marty Beneteau speaks with a group of University of Windsor MBA students at The Star's News Cafe Thursday July 10, 2014. (NICK BRANCACCIO/The Windsor Star)starcitydeskWindsor Star Editor-in-Chief Marty Beneteau takes a group of University of Windsor MBA students for a tour of the transformed local newspaper Thursday July 10, 2014. (NICK BRANCACCIO/The Windsor Star)University of Windsor MBA students listen to The Star's Editor-in-Chief Marty Beneteau at News Cafe Thursday July 10, 2014. (NICK BRANCACCIO/The Windsor Star)Windsor Star Editor-in-Chief Marty Beneteau addresses a class of University of Windsor MBA students at News Cafe Thursday July 10, 2014. (NICK BRANCACCIO/The Windsor Star)University of Windsor MBA students were given a tour and presentation by The Star's Editor-in-Chief Marty Beneteau Thursday July 10, 2014. (NICK BRANCACCIO/The Windsor Star)Tentative agreement reached in Windsor Star contract talkshttp://blogs.windsorstar.com/news/tentative-agreement-reached-in-windsor-star-contract-talks
http://blogs.windsorstar.com/news/tentative-agreement-reached-in-windsor-star-contract-talks#commentsSat, 03 May 2014 01:35:38 +0000http://blogs.windsorstar.com/?p=341025]]>A tentative agreement has been reached in the contract talks at The Windsor Star.

Jim Angus, chair of the joint council of unions that represent Star employees, said the agreement involves a three-year contract for the approximately 185 people who comprise the newspaper’s workforce.

The contract has the unanimous recommendation of the bargaining units for Unifor Local 240, which represents newsroom and sales staff; Unifor Local 517G, representing printing plant workers; and CWA Guild Local 30553, representing mailroom employees.

A ratification vote will take place 2 p.m. Sunday at Local 240’s union hall, 3400 Somme Ave.

Find Windsor Star on Facebook]]>http://blogs.windsorstar.com/news/tentative-agreement-reached-in-windsor-star-contract-talks/feed0The exterior of The Windsor Star's building at 300 Ouellette Ave. is shown in this May 2013 file photo. (Jason Kryk / The Windsor Star)winstarchenA Windsor Star Storyhttp://blogs.windsorstar.com/business/a-windsor-star-story
http://blogs.windsorstar.com/business/a-windsor-star-story#commentsThu, 24 Apr 2014 00:55:05 +0000http://blogs.windsorstar.com/?p=339142]]>Editor-in-chief, Marty Beneteau poetically tells a story of The Windsor Star and the community it serves.

Video produced by Media Street Productions for the Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce 2014 Business Excellence Awards.

]]>http://blogs.windsorstar.com/business/a-windsor-star-story/feed0Exterior of the LED sign at 300 Ouellette Avenue, home of the The Windsor Star on May 6, 2013. (Photo Illustration by JASON KRYK/ The Windsor Star)beverlybeckerStar earns record 20 Ontario Newspaper Award nominationshttp://blogs.windsorstar.com/news/star-earns-record-20-ontario-newspaper-award-nominations
http://blogs.windsorstar.com/news/star-earns-record-20-ontario-newspaper-award-nominations#commentsFri, 21 Mar 2014 21:42:20 +0000http://blogs.windsorstar.com/?p=326138]]>The Windsor Star has earned a record 20 Ontario Newspaper Award nominations this year, more than any other competing newspaper, beating the Star’s previous record of 19.

The next highest number of nominations this year is 18 for the Hamilton Spectator.

“The breadth of this recognition speaks volumes about the great journalism carried out at The Star,” Star editor-in-chief Marty Beneteau said Friday. “The body of work for which we are honoured touches every corner of our community, exhibiting a keen understanding of modern, digital-age storytelling.”

The Ontario Newspaper Awards started in 1953 with a half dozen papers in southwestern Ontario and has grown today to include most daily papers in the province outside Toronto.

The winners will be announced May 3 at the ONA’s 60th anniversary awards gala, being held this year in Hamilton.

Claire Brownell, who received three nominations — for business writing, detailing shady dealings of a financial firm with locals ties, DSC Lifestyle; social media writing, for an eight-part series on Detroit; and coverage of health news and lifestyle, for exploring the diluted-chemo drug scandal involving Marchese Hospital Solutions.

Dave Battagello, who earned two nominations — for general news feature writing, for his coverage of the petcoke piles on the Detroit River banks across from Windsor, and for investigative/enterprise reporting, for looking into faulty girders used in building the Herb Gray Parkway.

The Star is guaranteed a win with online photography, capturing all three nominations in the category, thanks to the work of Tyler Brownbridge, Dax Melmer and Jason Kryk.

Melmer was also nominated for feature photography, as well as photojournalist of the year, while Kryk added nominations for spot photography, sports photography, and photojournalist of the year – which he has won before.

Karen Hall and Chris Vander Doelen were nominated for editorial, opinion and analysis writing. Vander Doelen also earned nominations for column writing for a portfolio of his work.

Dave Waddell collected a nomination for sports writing, for a profile on 21-year-old Cole Kierdorf, who was almost killed in a snowboarding accident. Brian Cross collected a nomination for education reporting, thanks to coverage of a new way of teaching.

A Windsor Star team earned a nominations for spot news reporting for its coverage of the announced closing of the Heinz plant in Leamington.

And a team comprising reporters Craig Pearson and Trevor Wilhelm, photographer Dan Janisse, and online editors Don McArthur and Dylan Kristy were nominated for the online multimedia special project, for a series on gun smuggling through the Windsor-Detroit border.

Find Windsor Star on Facebook]]>http://blogs.windsorstar.com/news/star-earns-record-20-ontario-newspaper-award-nominations/feed0Marty Beneteau, editor-in-chief of The Windsor Star, speaks at the opening party of the newspaper's new home at 300 Ouellette Ave. on May 10, 2013. (Nick Brancaccio / The Windsor Star)starcitydeskWindsor Star takes Postmedia award for Palace Theatre transformation (With Video)http://blogs.windsorstar.com/news/windsor-star-takes-postmedia-award-for-palace-theatre-transformation
http://blogs.windsorstar.com/news/windsor-star-takes-postmedia-award-for-palace-theatre-transformation#commentsTue, 14 Jan 2014 23:38:17 +0000http://blogs.windsorstar.com/?p=299653]]>It began with a secret tour through the aging halls of the old Windsor Star building.

The Windsor Star has received a Postmedia President’s Award of Excellence for breathing new life into downtown, by shedding an expensive, crumbling building and moving into a newly renovated showpiece location in the heart of the city. The Star took top honours in the Transformation category.

“It was a very literal transformation,” Postmedia CEO Paul Godfrey said Tuesday. “A blockbuster effort with all the thrills of an adventure movie.”

Other awards were claimed by the Ottawa Citizen, Postmedia News Service and the Calgary Herald.

He said seeds of the transformation sprouted in Feb. 2011 when University of Windsor president Alan Wildeman came to The Star for an editorial board meeting. Wildeman talked about his vision for helping revitalize downtown Windsor. Part of that plan included moving some operations and students into the core.

Beneteau saw an opportunity. The Windsor Star building at Pitt and Ferry streets was historically significant, but its finest days fell behind as it was turned into a “mash up” of repeated additions and alterations over several decades. Besides that, Beneteau said, less than a third of the building’s 68,000 square feet was being used.

After the meeting, Beneteau pulled Wildeman aside and suggested The Star building would be a good place for the university.

“He said ‘your building is not in play,’” Beneteau recalled Tuesday. “I said ‘it is now.’”

A few days later on a Saturday, with a hood pulled over his head so no one would recognize him, Wildeman slipped into the building for a tour. He liked the potential. With the sale of the old building on the way, The Star needed a new location.

Mayor Eddie Francis put Beneteau in touch with the landlord of the Palace Theatre, another downtown landmark that had seen better days. The building, a shadow of its former self, was going under.

Beneteau and production director Doug Shillington did their own clandestine tour of the still-operating theatre. They also saw potential.

Star managers struck a deal for a long-term lease of the building. The landlord, Mady Development Corporation, gutted the building, blew out the dated stucco walls and replaced them with wall-to-ceiling windows and levelled the theatre floors.

The Windsor Star News Cafe was created on one level of the building. The Star opened for business at 300 Ouellette on Nov. 12, 2012. Just to keep a taste of the past, the old Palace marquis sign still hangs in the newsroom on the top floor, which overlooks the corner of Ouellette and University avenues.

Beneteau said he was proud the Star helped play a role in bringing that corner and the rest of downtown back to life.

“To invest in downtown was kind of unheard of in recent history,” he said.

Find Windsor Star on Facebook]]>http://blogs.windsorstar.com/news/windsor-star-takes-postmedia-award-for-palace-theatre-transformation/feed0Nov. 1, 2012: David Mady hands over the keys to the new offices of The Windsor Star to editor-in-chief Marty Beneteau in the former Palace Theatre. (TYLER BROWNBRIDGE / The Windsor Star)winstarwilhelmFinalists announced for region’s Business Excellence Awardshttp://blogs.windsorstar.com/news/finalists-announced-for-regions-business-excellence-awards
http://blogs.windsorstar.com/news/finalists-announced-for-regions-business-excellence-awards#commentsThu, 09 Jan 2014 03:41:23 +0000http://blogs.windsorstar.com/?p=297004]]>Get ready to celebrate local excellence in business.

Marty Beneteau, editor-in-chief, said being a good community partner is also about good business — part of the ethos behind The Star’s new home and the company’s support of positive events such as this.

Also announced on Wednesday were the recipients of the ATHENA award, Kay Douglas, and the Believe Windsor Essex award, Green Shield Canada.

Editor-in-chief Marty Beneteau said it’s his hope that the public considers The Star “an institution in this community, no different than the university and the college, the art gallery and the symphony.”

“We have that kind of validity in people’s lives, and we try to earn that every day,” Beneteau said on Friday night at a gala party celebrating The Star’s recently completed renovation of 300 Ouellette Ave.

Speaking in the newsroom before a crowd of dignitaries and executives, Beneteau recalled a promise he made during a past speech that “we will not go quietly into the night.”

“When I look around this place today … I say to myself, ‘Promise kept,'” Beneteau said. “We are not quiet here by any means. We have staked our ground.”

Just over two years since the plan’s conception, The Windsor Star has finished its conversion of the former Palace Cinema in the city’s core. Friday’s event celebrated the opening of the News Cafe on the third floor of the building.

Although the space houses the expanded business of the Green Bean Cafe — owned and operated by Ben and Michelle Davidson — it’s also been designed as a new community forum: A place to gather, debate, and collaborate. “Our intention is to interact with people, not just lecture to them,” Beneteau said.

Postmedia Network Inc. CEO Paul Godfrey took to the podium to praise Beneteau and The Star’s transformation.

“I think everybody knows newspapers are having their difficulties these days,” Godfrey said, noting the challenges of changing technology and declining print advertising. “But you people in Windsor are one step ahead of everybody else.”

Godfrey said The Star “sets an example for other newpapers and other businesses in Canada” with its willingness to embrace change. He said he’s not surprised that the newspaper is the most read in the country on a per capita basis.

“I think when you develop a working environment like what has been developed here … The Windsor Star has a long and healthy life ahead of it,” Godfrey said.

Mayor Eddie Francis also acknowledged The Star as “the record” of Windsor. “It is the constant reminder of what is strong about this community, what is important in this community.”

Francis recalled a time when Windsor’s core was “known to be a kiddie bar,” and downtown investment was considered by very few.

Recognizing property owners David and Charles Mady of the Mady Development Corporation, the mayor said the new form of 300 Ouellette Ave. shows how times have changed. “You’ve taken community development to the next step,” Francis said.

But Beneteau assured that some things will not change — namely, that The Star will continue its history of “great journalists and great storytellers.”

Find Windsor Star on Facebook]]>http://blogs.windsorstar.com/news/news-cafe-gala/feed0Marty Beneteau, editor-in-chief of The Windsor Star, speaks at the opening party of the newspaper's new home at 300 Ouellette Ave. on May 10, 2013. (Nick Brancaccio / The Windsor Star)winstarchenWindsor Star editor-in-chief Marty Beneteau (L) and columnist Chris Vander Doelen on the terraces of the newspaper's new home at 300 Ouellette Ave. Photographed May 10, 2013. (Nick Brancaccio / The Windsor Star)Postmedia Network Inc. CEO Paul Godfrey stands by a photo of the old home of The Windsor Star on May 10, 2013. (Nick Brancaccio / The Windsor Star)Britney Lucier (L) and Andrea Gerrard (R), members of The Windsor Star Scene Team, welcome guests to 300 Ouellette Ave. on May 10, 2013. (Nick Brancaccio / The Windsor Star)Postmedia Network Inc. executives Lou Clancy (L), Paul Godfrey (centre), and Wayne Parrish (R) arrive at 300 Ouellette Ave. on May 10, 2013. (Nick Brancaccio / The Windsor Star)The completed new home of The Windsor Star at 300 Ouellette Ave. Photographed May 1, 2013. (Jason Kryk / The Windsor Star)Reconstructing a downtown iconhttp://blogs.windsorstar.com/special-features/reconstructing-a-downtown-icon
http://blogs.windsorstar.com/special-features/reconstructing-a-downtown-icon#commentsFri, 10 May 2013 21:45:50 +0000http://blogs.windsorstar.com/?p=181892]]>When David Mady gave Windsor Star editor-in-chief Marty Beneteau his first tour of the former Palace Theatre as a potential tenant of the space, the developer assumed the answer would be a quick “no.”

The four movie theatres were still open and operating at the time, but just barely.

“It was a dark, stinking little theatre, with the original carpets my father had installed 25 years earlier,” Mady recalled over a coffee. “The people running the theatres were doing their best, but …”

Even the building’s owners had to admit the Palace was becoming “an eyesore” again, and that its future appeared bleak, Mady says. Although only half empty, even the occupied half wasn’t paying its own way.

“I expected (Beneteau) to say it was a dump. But instead he said ‘I love it.’ That’s when I knew he was crazy,” Mady jokes. “But I had my fingers crossed when we walked in.”

Selling Beneteau on the building as the new home of The Windsor Star turned out to be the easy part. The $4-million refit proved much more challenging.

Several months after giving Beneteau his initial tour, Mady Corp., was facing the reality of stripping the upper half of a five-storey building down to its steel skeleton so obsolete theatres could be transformed into a state-of-the-art digital media space.

The job would take 11 months — pretty fast for a nearly complete teardown and reconstruction, or “repurposing,” as they say in the business. To add haste, design commenced shortly after the signing of the deal and continued while work progressed.

“We wanted an open-concept space in which no walls would separate the newsroom from the sales floor, marketing and finance departments. The plan was to create an open-span space from one end to the other,” Beneteau says.

Meanwhile, Mady’s plan for the rebuild was to install two storeys of windows in the previously blind west and north facades of the building. Beneteau asked that one of the two glass faces remain free of offices, “and we chose the north face for its better light and view of Detroit.”

The double-high glass wall views were assigned to the news staff “so that people on the street could see activity at all hours of the day and night,” Beneteau says.

But it wasn’t easy to make that happen. It took more than 50 revisions of the floor plan before Doug Shillington, The Star’s production director and project manager for the move, could hand a finished product to Mady’s architects. Marketing director Beverly Becker enlisted the aid of interior designer Helena Ventrella for the important finishes, including the colour palate and artworks. The office is festooned with historical artifacts and Star photographs set to canvas.

Another challenge was reconstructing a building on a cramped and busy site with narrow sidewalks below, working above existing tenants. Meanwhile, the foot traffic of thousands of pedestrians would also be streaming past below on the city’s main commercial intersection — “centre ice,” as Mady puts it.

But there wasn’t any other way to save a building that, although only 25 years old and as solid as H-beams can make a modern building, was so tired and under-loved its future was already uncertain.

LaSalle resident Mady, 42, was the ideal person to oversee a rebirth of the building. At age 16 he spent his summer working as a labourer during the 1985 construction of the building for his developer father Charles (Chuck) Mady, then still based in Windsor.

“It was kind of cool to redo a building that my father had done 25 years before. How many people get a chance to do that? So we decided to call all the same people.”

First on the list to help transform the building were the original architects and engineers who created the new Palace. They were asked if they were interested in having a second go at their old project; they were.

Also recalled was Trojan Interior Contracting — a Windsor company whose relationship with the site goes back to 1946, when owner Rob Troupe’s grandfather did plastering for the original Palace Theatre.

Forty years later Trojan was contracted again to do the drywall and exterior cladding of the Palace 2.0, and in 2012 they redid it a third time for The Windsor Star’s version of the building. D&M Glass and Mirror Ltd. of Lakeshore was tapped to install the new glass panelling.

The Mady team’s first order of business was to “totally peel back” the insulated north and west walls of the theatres so they could eventually be replaced with a glass curtain wall, Mady says. “We literally tore the building apart.”

Next was removing the chief feature that sets a theatre structure apart from most other buildings: the sloped floors. “We had a four-foot slope from one side to the other,” Mady explains. The slopes ran outward and downward from the centre of the building to the screens on the outer north and south walls.

Other potential tenants, including St. Clair College, had already refused to consider leasing or buying the building because of the engineering challenge involved.

Replacing 20,000 square feet of sloping concrete with a level floor “was a bit of an engineering feat” and took several design attempts.

A preliminary plan was to level the floor using truckloads of geotechnical foam similar to that being used as lightweight fill underneath portions of the Herb Gray Parkway. But that proposed solution didn’t pass code because the material was combustible.

July 30, 2012: The pink stucco west wall of the former Palace is replaced with a glass curtain wall. (JASON KRYK / The Windsor Star)

The fix that worked was welding a new steel framed floor into place above the old one, then pouring a new four-inch-thick concrete slab for the entire fourth floor of the building.

A crawl space was left below the new floor — one of two that are now hidden behind the glass walls of the structure: one above and one below the old theatre floors.

The biggest part of the new floor job was pre-wiring the structure to accommodate a digital media workplace, which turned out to be a much more daunting job than expected.

Wiring preparations prior to the pouring of the new floor took months as designers worked in tandem with The Star’s Business Technology department to make sure that 125 workstations were connected to the Internet and had enough juice to power a multitude of electronic devices.

“A huge tip of the hat must go to Lyndon Brown, who oversaw an incredibly complicated IT build which allowed us to bury, not suspend, our cabling,” Beneteau says.

Oct. 12, 2012: Just some of the equipment needed for the huge wiring job. (NICK BRANCACCIO / The Windsor Star)

The amount of wiring and cabling required to hook that many people and their high-powered media workstations to The Star’s many webs came as a bit of a shock to members of the design/build team.

“We’ve never been involved with a media company before, so absolutely it was a surprise,” Mady says. “We’re used to providing a plug and a phone jack, maybe a data plug” for each workstation.

Each Windsor Star employee is furnished with a VOIP telephone connection, a high-speed Internet hookup, at least one computer screen (editors, some artists and ad services staff have two to three screens each), a desktop laptop dock, plus a half dozen power plugs for the many accessories reporters and editors use, from phone chargers to radios.

Seven large screen TVs are scattered around the newsroom, and there are so many printers they constitute their own sub-web wired to all the workstations.

The Star’s computer mainframes are not only connected to its press printing facility on Starway Drive, but to Postmedia’s main computing centres in Winnipeg, plus its advertising, layout and page production groups in Hamilton, Calgary and Indonesia.

It’s a lot of connections, all heavily firewalled and backstopped with redundant connections. All those hookups created a knot of hundreds of miles of cabling underneath the old Windsor Star’s offices. Our former newsroom sat atop a small lake of subfloor cabling eight inches deep, hidden beneath a raised flooring system.

The new newsroom was designed to bury all that wire in concrete to create a clutter-free workplace free of ugly “jiffy poles” reaching to the ceiling at every desk, and simpler to update as technology advances.

Design changes evolved as the project moved forward. As plans for a Windsor Star News Cafe coalesced, Beneteau decided that balconies opening over Ouellette Avenue were a way to further connect staff with the active street life below on Ouellette Avenue.

Two balconies — they’re non-smoking by law, because they’re roofed over — were carved out of skin of the building to bracket the elevator tower at the centre of the building.

A major addition en route to the transformation of the building was the creation of a central skylight in a building originally designed to be dark at all times. The skylight now opens up the centre of the building, spreading the daylight down two floors.

The massive LED display screens which dominate the corner of the building were also redesigned midway through the project, thanks to a suggestion from the City of Windsor’s building and planning departments.

“Planning actually encouraged us to create the signature corner with ‘the hat’ on top,” Mady says of the jutting cornice at the top of the sign. “They asked us to build out the sign a little bit to accentuate the corner. It was a good idea we embraced.”

Inside, it cost $50,000 to make two unneeded escalators for movie patrons disappear. One was disassembled and carted out in pieces, by hand; the other one is still in place but entombed in drywall and buried under industrial sculpture, including a conveyor from The Star’s old printing press that dominates the lobby of the new building.

At street level, vertical pillars that had been marred and abused by 21/2 decades of street parties and late-night taggers were rewrapped. The pillars, which hide vertical H-beams, are in new glass-fibre tubes which are now covered with a “tamper proof” coating more appropriate for a high traffic corner.

The improved dignity of the look immediately drew the interest of potential new tenants, with Windsor Family Credit Union announcing May 1 that it was would open a branch in the space directly below The Star’s newsroom, which is to be vacated by CTV’s Windsor television studios.

“They’re going to be a terrific addition to the downtown,” Mady says. “With the stability of an anchor tenant we can improve the tenant mix now.”

He expects several remaining empty units in the building to be filled quickly now that construction is complete. The effect of the redevelopment will probably even spread to nearby blocks, he believes.

“It’s never looked better,” he says of the busy intersection. “We’ve been lacklustre in the downtown for a long, long time and in my humble opinion there’s some light at the end of the tunnel for downtown Windsor.”